After the Swedish singer told NME that her third album was the final part to a trilogy, it seemed at first like an unnecessary afterthought.
How do you get away with announcing your work as a trilogy after it’s completed? Lykke Li has always sung within the parameters of love, lust, and relationships, and it seems unthinkable that the musician could be any different in the future.
But what justifies the notion that her first three full-length releases can be seen as a trilogy, in retrospect, is entailed within I Never Learn. Her third LP is a visceral dissemination of the heartache the songwriter experienced in the wake of a break-up.
Perhaps when she sings “Don’t let them get away” on ‘No Rest For The Wicked’, she’s referring to the same person who inspired the quirky pop of Youth Novels.
Or maybe Li is fed up with labouring over the Wounded Rhymes that inspired her sophomore release and it has culminated in this final burst of love-torn gloom?
Either way, you get the feeling that Li is tired of singing about the sort of relationships that have inspired her discography thus far and the singer is hell bent on ripping herself to shreds over past mistakes.
You feel it, too. The emotional resonance is all in the delivery. The artist has never sounded so melancholy on the sonically simplistic ‘Love Me Like I’m Not Made Of Stone’, while the pain in her voice cuts through the ethereal consistency of ‘Just Like A Dream’.
However, when Li’s songwriting is shrouded with an awkward sonic counterpart on ‘Never Gonna Love Again’ and choir vocals on ‘Heart Of Steel’, her heartache fails to resonate – which makes the back half of I Never Learn disappointing. Li has the love scribing skills (and demonstrates so in the first half) unlike few others.
This may be the end of a trilogy, but the singer shouldn’t give up on singing about love just yet. Her third LP leaves a potential unfulfilled that we’re dying to see realised.
Listen to ‘No Rest For The Wicked feat. A$AP Rocky’ here:
